Skype reads your BIOS & Motherboard ID

General Topics
1

Hi malware fighters,

Software may have hidden features, and sometimes these are found up by accident, error messages can be such a way. There is a lot more tracking going around than users are aware of or are being made aware of. Read this here:
http://www.pagetable.com/?p=27 Is this a way to smear the makers of Skype in some way, or is there something there. I cannot evaluate the real meaning of it.
Big Brother is marching on, and finds no obstacle in its way, it seems.
Some had your machine ID anyway, if you bought it in a shop it can be traced back from any location (every machine has unique characteristics that makes it stand out). There is no denying, and you cannot close your eyes to it. Who is checking out Big Brother for us? The solution in the case of skype is to insert some crap at the start of the com file using a text editor.

polonus

2

Hello Polonus!

This is interesting i also use Skype but i haven’t found that .com file on my system … Is there any official comment on this from Skype people ?

3

Read this Skype Extras plug-in manager

4

Hey thanks for the link ! It seems they removed the BIOS reading :

… Since we learned that EasyBits DRM did not perform well on some newer platforms, we updated the version of their framework with one that no longer attempts to read from the BIOS. The current download of Skype for Windows, version 3.0.0.216, includes this updated framework.

BTW your link doesn’t work. You might want to re-edit your post.

http://share.skype.com/sites/security/2007/02/skype_extras_plugin_manager.html

5

Thanks :wink:

6

Does the Skype for OS X do this too?